Tech advocacy groups raise concerns, calling for FTC investigation into alleged children’s privacy violations by Google

Privacy Tech Advocacy Groups Request FTC Investigation into Google for Alleged Children’s Privacy Violations

Privacy tech advocacy groups Fairplay and Center for Digital Democracy have filed a request with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), urging the agency to investigate whether Google and YouTube serve personalized ads on “Made for Kids” YouTube channels. This request comes after calls from members of Congress for the FTC to investigate whether YouTube violated a federal children’s privacy law. The advocacy groups are asking the FTC to use its investigative authorities to determine if Google‘s behavior has violated federal children’s privacy law, as well as a 2019 agreement it reached with the agency over previous alleged violations.

Research Raises Questions about Google‘s Practices

Documents submitted as part of the request for investigation outline independent research conducted by Fairplay, which suggests that Google may be personalizing ads on “made for kids” channels, despite the tech giant’s claims that it does not target children. It’s important to note that the documents do not provide evidence of Google violating federal children’s privacy law. Instead, the advocacy groups are asking the FTC to investigate whether any violations have occurred.

According to Fairplay, the research it conducted supports findings by the firm Adalytics, which reported last week that YouTube was placing ads for adult products on children’s channels, potentially collecting data on children. Fairplay’s investigation further revealed that an ad campaign targeting specific attributes reached viewers with those attributes 100% of the time on designated “made for kids” channels. The ad campaign also indicated how many users who saw the ad identified as parents. Adalytics also reported that it was able to exclude parents as an audience segment when running an ad campaign on “made for kids” channels.

Fairplay argues that if YouTube and Google are treating all viewers of “made for kids” videos as children to comply with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), the companies should not possess behavioral data about viewers of these videos and should not be able to provide such data to ad buyers.

Google‘s History of Children’s Privacy Issues

Google faced scrutiny in 2019 when it paid $170 million to settle lawsuits filed by the FTC and the state of New York alleging that YouTube had collected personal information from children without parental consent. As part of the settlement, YouTube agreed to create a system to identify children’s content and avoid targeted advertising to children. COPPA requires companies to obtain parental consent before gathering data on users under the age of 13.

In 2018, Fairplay and the Center for Digital Democracy led a coalition requesting an FTC investigation into YouTube for children’s privacy violations.

Google‘s Response and Calls for FTC Enforcement

Google maintains that it does not provide personalized ads on videos for children and that all ads appearing on “made for kids” channels are served in a contextual manner, based on the context of the web page rather than the user’s profile. Fairplay argues that Google‘s claim is implausible, given its own findings of reaching viewers with specific attributes 100% of the time.

Fairplay is urging the FTC to take stronger enforcement actions if violations are found, including the deletion of any models trained on data obtained in violation of privacy laws and banning Google and YouTube from monetizing any children’s data in the future. The request for investigation also references the recent privacy settlement proposed by the FTC against Meta, which includes a penalty of banning the company from monetizing any children’s data.

Haley Hinkle, policy counsel at Fairplay, emphasizes the need for the FTC to use all available tools, stating, “If these platforms are going to repeatedly demonstrate that they cannot handle minors’ data in a COPPA-compliant way, then the FTC needs to say, ‘you can’t be trusted to profit off of it anymore.’

Conclusion

As privacy concerns surrounding children’s data persist, privacy tech advocacy groups continue to push for stricter enforcement and investigation into tech giants like Google and YouTube. Questions surrounding the personalization of ads on “made for kids” channels raise concerns about the potential collection of data on children without parental consent. The FTC’s investigation will play a crucial role in determining whether Google‘s practices violate federal children’s privacy laws and the previous agreement reached with the agency. Meanwhile, the outcome of this investigation will likely have implications for the way tech companies handle children’s data and advertising in the future.